Intimate Partner Violence Reports During the COVID-19 Pandemic First Year in Portuguese Urban Areas: A Brief Report

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about the exponential growth of intimate partner violence (IPV), both in numbers and severity. This brief report aims to describe the variation of IPV reports to the police during the pandemic in Portugal. Data were retrieved from a governmental national database. A five-year period was analyzed. Characteristics from the occurrence, as well as sociodemographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators, were described for each year. Data showed a 10.99% decrease of IPV reports to the police in 2020 compared with the average of the previous four years. Periods when more restrictive measures (e.g., lockdown) were decreed by the government corresponded to a higher decrease in IPV reports to the police. Significant differences in the distribution of crime location, crime reporting, type of violence, age of victims and perpetrators, and professional situation and financial dependence of perpetrators, were found between 2020 and previous years. COVID-19 pandemic does not seem to be associated with a raise in IPV reports to the police, nor higher severity of the reported cases. This brief report adds to previous research by providing detailed and systematically collected data about IPV occurrences during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Prevalence, Directionality, and Dyadic Perpetration Types of Intimate Partner Violence in a Community Sample in Portugal: a Gender-Inclusive Inquiry

“…Specific questions about the impact of COVID-19 on intimate relationships could have been asked if it had been possible to anticipate the onset of the pandemic and consequent lockdown measures during data collection. This would be important to contextualize the discrepancy between the decrease of reports to the police during the first lockdown period in Portugal (Capinha et al, 2021 ) versus the increase of requests for help, during those months, to one of the main non-governmental organization (NGO) that support victims nationwide (Ribeiro et al, 2022 ). Such information would allow for a better understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced the current findings.…”

“…Such information would allow for a better understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced the current findings. Bearing in mind that criminal statistics point to an overall decrease in IPV (Capinha et al, 2021 ) and there was also a decrease of 4.9% in requests for help to the NGO, specifically regarding IPV, during 2020, one cannot exclude the possibility that less aggressive behavior occurred in this period. If that would be the case, it would be contrary to what was anticipated by some authors (e.g., Campbell, 2020 ), despite the initial increase that was observed on requests for help (Ribeiro et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Being an atypical year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in comparison to 2019, and specifically regarding IPV, a decrease of 5.5% was observed in the number of reports across the country. In comparison with the previous 4 years, a decrease of about 11% in the IPV reports was identified in urban areas alone (Capinha et al, 2021 ).…”

Intimate Partner Abuse and Homicide During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Situational Action Theory Analysis

“…Although a wave of publications appeared in the initial wake of the pandemic predicting a "shadow pandemic" (UN Women, 2020), based on preliminary and anecdotal evidence, as a wider perspective and evidence base has developed, the picture remains unclear (Miller et al, 2022). Many studies report increases in IPA, but those encompassing more data and accounting for more confounds suggest these increases are smaller than predicted (Piquero et al, 2021;Thiel et al, 2022;Uzoho et al, 2023) and vary significantly, with IPA increasing in some contexts (e.g., Evcili & Demirel, 2022;Hamadani et al, 2020;Keilholtz et al, 2023;Romito et al, 2022;Soeiro et al, 2023), remaining unchanged in some contexts (e.g., Chiaramonte et al, 2022;Miller et al, 2022;Tierolf et al, 2021), and even decreasing in some contexts (e.g., Capinha et al, 2022;Estlein et al, 2022;Gosangi et al, 2021;Jetelina et al, 2021;Plášilová et al, 2021). Some evidence suggests that incidents of IPA did not substantially increase, but the severity did (e.g., Estlein et al, 2022;Gosangi et al, 2021;Stripe, 2020;Thiel et al, 2022;Trafford, 2022), mainly among those with a prior history of IPA (e.g., Lausi et al, 2021;Plášilová et al, 2021;Thiel et al, 2022).…”

The role of family doctors in the management of domestic violence cases – a qualitative study in Portugal

“…In 2022 the Portuguese Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality registered the highest numbers of reports of DV in the past three years, according to the numbers provided by the Public Security Police (PSP) and the Republican National Guard (GNR), with 30,389 cases filed to these law enforcement entities [ 5 ]. The reported numbers may have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and its social and economic impact, as studies have shown a decrease in reports during periods when more restrictive measures were implemented by the Portuguese government to prevent the spread of the virus [ 6 , 7 ]. DV has been linked to adverse health issues in both victims and aggressors, leading to a higher utilization of health services [ 4 , 8 , 9 ].…”